Spring and Summer are great seasons for those who work in the food industry, and especially for food truck owners. As the weather gets warmer, more and more people will be out and about, and nothing makes a stroll more pleasant than eating some food on the go.

In today’s food industry, food trucks are the fastest-growing business with numbers that keep growing year by year. Food trucks have been around for a long time, but now they’re experiencing their true golden age. In 2012, the food truck industry revenue was estimated $650 million, a number that has since skyrocketed reaching a whopping $2.7 billion in 2017. Food trucks outpaced other commercial food services and can be kick-started with a rather small investment. Food trucks are the next generation of food service, so knowing how to make the best out of them is a must for most modern restaurant entrepreneurs.

What makes food trucks so popular?

If you’re a first-time entrepreneur, a food truck can prove to be more profitable than a small cafeteria or eatery. With an initial investment of less than $100,000, anyone can setup a profitable food truck business that can make anywhere between $250,000 to $500,000 per year.

Their flexibility makes them quite unique, as an entrepreneur can quickly and easily test different menu items, recipes and even new concepts with a minimum risk. Strategies and offers can be conveniently tailored to specific customer preferences in a very cost-effective way, and the truck itself can be customized and personalized to increase your audience.

Mobile services are easily paired with mobile communication, which is a must to stay up to date with the latest food trends. Millenials, in particular, like to “post” their food on social social media before eating it, and sharing is a fundamental part of eating nowadays. With a properly planned social strategy, food trucks can generate immediate responses even from the most time-starved audiences.

Food trailers are highly mobile businesses that can cater different tastes in different locations at an amazing speed. Changing locations allows them move out from “dead zones” during low seasons, and move only where the best profit opportunities are. They can also follow the masses, and reach out for the largest audiences by setting up near concerts, events and neighborhood parties by making smart use of geolocation tools.

Many brick-and-mortar restaurants use custom truck builders to to make their business mobile, and hit the road with trucks that serve as moving marketing vehicles with the same branding the customers know from the restaurant. Regardless of your situation, you’ll want to make sure that you spend time branding the vehicle to make your food truck easily recognizable.

The requirements to run a food truck

There are a few things you need to do if you want to run a legit food truck service. Every region has its own codes and regulations on food trucks, so you want to know them beforehand to comply with them. Mobile vending laws and parking permits change in every city, so be sure to check the specific ones rather than just state or county laws. You may need to provide proof of ownership, insurance, identification and vehicular license, so get all your documents ready before rolling into to a different city.

Then, you should confirm the minimum distance you can be from a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Other than just being compliant with local laws, you might want to keep competition fair at all times. Also, find out if you need a commissary to prepare food before serving and meet all health and fire codes to get approved by the local board of health.

Other than just to receive formal approval to market your products, some of these regulations are useful to help you provide your customers with only the best quality food possible. For example, by making sure that food is stored and kept in proper temperature, you can prevent it from spoiling especially in the case of highly perishable foods such as fruit or seafood.

Conclusion

As you can see, the right time to find a food truck for sale is today rather than tomorrow. The market is full of very affordable offers, but their price is destined to increase in the upcoming years. As this industry is growing at a steady pace, making this investment now can help you make a hefty profit with very little efforts.

Are you thinking of hitting the road on your own food truck journey? Leave us a comment with your best food truck concept ideas and let us know what you thought of this article.